Disburse Vs. Disperse--Wrong!

Some people talk about their mistakes in therapy. Some write about their mistakes in diaries or journals. I write about mine here. That way, I may save other people from making the same errors.

The mistake: disburse vs. disperse.

My mistake was thinking that disburse meant "distribute methodically" while disperse meant "scatter." WRONG!

Disburse means "distribute money." Disperse means "distribute or scatter." Disperse applies to everything except money.

You can disperse knowledge to your students. You can disperse an unruly crowd gathering in your lobby. (And the crowd itself can disperse.) You can disperse flyers about your upcoming sale.

But if it is money you want to distribute, disburse it. The word comes, in part, from the French word for purse, bourse. If it comes from your bourse, disburse it.

This might seem like a small error. Indeed, it is. The problem is that I have dispersed this misinformation to people in my writing classes.  If a small error is repeated many times, does it become a big error?

My office is filled with excellent reference books, which I always consult before putting a rule in writing to pass on in classes. That is why I don't know how I got disperse/disburse wrong. But wrong I was.

I hope you get two things from this post:

1. The difference between disperse and disburse
2. The fact that experts are sometimes wrong, even with the best intentions

If you have any mistakes to share, please bare your soul here. Of course, please limit yourself to mistakes in business writing.

Thanks!

Lynn
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Other search spellings: bizness, bisness, writting, eror, dispurse

Comments

[Eric Fried]

I happen to agree completely. Dictionary.com, however, does not:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=disburse

I hear English is defined by its usage rather than the other way around. Therefore, if a small error is repeated many times, it becomes a NON-error. This is why "affect" and "effect" are now officially interchangeable, and words like "irregardless" are considered valid. For the record, I think that's bogus.

[Valerie]

Thank you so much for this! This has puzzled me for quite some time now! I will be sure not to misuse either.

[Paul]

Hmmm... if we are going to not pay for something centrally, but prefer that the costs be paid in all separate cost centers... are we disbursing or dispersing the cost? It's happening to the charges... or the "budget hits"... but it is not actually "money being distributed"!

[Lynn Gaertner-Johnston]

Paul, interesting question! I would say you are dispersing the costs, based on the discussion above.

Coming here to reply to your comment, I noticed Eric's comment above, which I had not seen before. I was shocked to read that "affect" and "effect" are officially interchangeable. Officially? No, it can't be.

Lynn

[Peter Johnson]

Another bookkeeping mistake I saw recently.

"pouring over the annual financial report" rather than "poring over it."

Peter

[Lynn Gaertner-Johnston]

Peter, that's a fine one! I discuss it in my "60 Quick Word Fixes."

Lynn

[Bekki]

Remember also, if you disperse you have a dispersal; if you disburse, you have a disbursement.

[Lynn Gaertner-Johnston]

Thanks, Bekki, for that helpful reminder.

Lynn